Coatesville Area approves $2.8 million headquarters

Staff Photo by Vinny Tennis
The Coatesville Area School Board is looking to purchase the property at 3030 Zinn Road in Thorndale to be the new home for it's district office building. The school board said that the purchase of a new building will save the district money because the energy cost at the Benner Building are extremely high.

Coatesville Area School Board members Tuesday night unanimously approved the $2.85 million purchase of a new administration building, which will also house a planned district-run health care facility.

The school board held the special meeting prior to the regularly scheduled committee meetings and voted on the building purchase prior to a presentation created to provide the public with details about the plan.

The board approved the purchase with no discussion.

Despite the school board’s argument that spending nearly $3 million to purchase a new administration building would help save the district in health care costs and the cost of utilities in the new facility, community members were displeased the school board decided to move on the offer before listening to public input.

Resident Nancy Miller asked board members why money is being spent to purchase a new facility when the school district could use those funds to make necessary repairs to school buildings.

According to board members, they have looked into other facilities that would be used as the new administration building, as well as a health care facility.

“What is the advantage for leaving doctors that they have had a relationship with for years?” Miller asked school board members.

Many community members were displeased the school board decided to move on the buildings approval only a few weeks after approving to put an offer in on the building.

Board president Neil Campbell said if the school board did not move quickly on the purchase, the district would lose $65,000 per month in current health care costs.

School board member Joe Dunn said a high cost is associated with managing Benner. He said there is also more unused space in the facility since the district witnessed a loss of 250 administrative employees in the past two years, which is reducing productivity.

He said by purchasing the building and offering an in-house health care program “will generate reductions in costs, which is the same thing as increasing revenue.”

The school board recently approved putting a $2.825 million offer in on the 35,360-square-foot facility, with plans to implement the new health care facility on the lower level and house administrative offices in the rest of the facility.

“There’s bond money that we have had for a very long time,” Campbell said. at the Tuesday night meeting. “It is sitting there we have to use it and I think we are using it wisely.

The building, at 3030 Zinn Drive in Thorndale, was formerly occupied by Citadel as an operation center for more than 25 years until they decided to consolidate its area operations teams to Eagleview Boulevard in Exton in 2011, according to company spokeswoman Yvonne Wright.

According to the agreement, the district had a 30-day due diligence from the time the offer was approved.

According to school district project manager Bill Androwick, Benner is the most inefficient building when it comes to the cost of utilities in the district. The 5,400-square-foot building’s utility costs run about $2.14 per square foot per month.

The leading cause of high utility bills is the current cooling system in the building, which needs to be replaced, school officials said. Replacing the cooling system could cost $170,000 to $210,000, and that includes replacing the outdoor unit and interior coils for air handlers on each floor, Androwick told the Daily Local News in October.

Campbell said the search for a new administration building began nearly a year ago when the school district started considering an in-house health care program for all district employees.

He said if the district could save an upward of $500,000 and that is “expected to grow considerably” in the following years.

In February the school board approved entering a partnership with Integrity Health LLC and March & McLennan to create a “partnership health care center” located in the CASD boundaries.

According to a Integrity Health’s website, the New Jersey-based health care organization entered into a similar agreement with Tom River School District. The center in Coatesville would be the second facility opened by the company, a news release posted on Integrity Health’s website said.

The deal with Toms River was estimated to save the school district “$1.98 million, providing the equivalent of $4.98 million in primary-care service through a $3 million annual contract,” the news release says.

In August, Integrity Health President Douglas R. Forrester told the publication NJ Spotlight that the company was in the process of building its second Partnership Health Center in Coatesville.

On Tuesday, school board member-elect raised objections that Integrity Health appeared to be underway with plans to build a health care facility in Coatesville before the school board approved the plan in public.

Newly elected school board member Stu Deets raised question to whether or not teachers were surveyed, similar to surveys in Toms River, to see if the service would be used by staff.

According to Dunn, the new plan was discussed with teachers, but he could not provide an exact figure for how many teachers and school district staff would be on board for using the school district’s health care center.

Teachers union president Audra Ritter said teachers were never asked if they would opt to initiating in the voluntary health care services, or if the would use the health center.

After more than three hours into the meeting following the approval of the purchase, a presentation was given showing the breakdown of how much it would cost to perform necessary repairs to buildings throughout the district.

According to the presentation, the estimated cost of future capital improvements totals $22,107,100 for all district buildings leaving $1,393,624 left in bond funds.

To prepare the Citadel building for use, it would cost $305,000 for the technology department to move fiber rings and the server, repaint and re-carpet two floors, and move all items from Benner to Citadel.

Resident Donna Newsuan said before the school board presented the capital projects review that addressed funding repairs to all schools in the district using bond funds, purchasing the building is a “haphazard decision” that might overlook the needs of students.

“We are not making the haphazard decisions,” she said. “The children are suffering.”